Though frequently acknowledged as a remarkable phase within Czech
literary history, the poetic outpouring in the build-up to and aftermath
of the Munich Agreement has received comparatively little rigorous
scholarly attention to date. In this study, Frances Jackson seeks
redress to the balance, drawing on a range of theoretical instruments,
including the idea of the event in both a narratological and more
philosophical sense, and notions of rhetoric and authenticity. She
establishes vernost ("faith(fulness)", "loyalty", "verity", "troth"
etc.) as the distinguishing feature of collections such as Seifert's
Zhasnete svetla or Halas' Torzo nadeje and demonstrates how this can be
constructed poetically. Rather than viewing the period as a watershed
moment per se, the study also situates its output within the context of
late modernism, highlighting important parallels with contemporaneous
English-language works.